Something Old, Something New
by Christine Morgan
Summary: In the wake of the Hunter's Moon, Captain Chavez makes a discovery in the precinct attic. #1 in a long series.


Something Old, Something New

Something Old, Something New   
by Christine M. Morgan 

[http://www.sabledrake.com][1]   
[christine@sabledrake.com][2] Author's Notes:  
Typical disclaimers about how most of the characters  
presented herein are the property and creative brain-children of the  
wonderful folks at Disney. Joy, Crimson, and the other old-timers are  
my own; please ask before borrowing them.  
This story is set about six weeks after "Hunter's Moon."  
Comments are not only welcome but eagerly sought after. 

#1 in an ongoing Gargoyles fanfic saga   
  
Morgan looked startled when he saw her, but then his face  
split into a broad, beaming grin. "Hey, Captain! Thought they weren't  
letting you come back for a few weeks!"  
Captain Maria Chavez returned his smile, hers a bit rueful.  
She gestured to the padded brace and cast that encased one of her  
legs. "As you can see, Morgan, I'm not ready to run any marathons  
yet. I'm supposed to be at home, resting, with my foot up, but I just  
couldn't stand any more of those stupid afternoon talk shows. And  
my place is a mess. Though," she continued, looking around  
dubiously, "things aren't much better here."  
The hall leading to her office was crowded with painter's  
scaffolds, disorganized piles of lumber, toolboxes gaping like metal-  
filled mouths, and people in coveralls slouching about drinking from  
styrofoam cups and looking like they wished they had cigarettes.  
"Coffee break," Morgan said, falling into step beside her and  
slowing to allow for her limp. "Seems like they have six or seven of  
them a day."  
"Our coffee, I suppose."  
"Yeah. They were going after the donuts, too, but Richards  
put a stop to that." He chuckled. "You should've seen it. He started  
spouting some line about police property and obstructing breakfast,  
and just to make his point he cuffed one of them to the kitchen door  
as a warning."  
"Richards has to start being more careful with his own police  
property," Chavez said absently as she dug her keys out of her  
purse. "He might think I've forgotten about the time he left his gun  
lying on the counter at the sandwich place, but believe you me,  
Morgan, it's well-remembered."  
"Yes, Ma'am. So how long are these jokers supposed to be  
here?"  
She sighed and shook her head. "It's taken them six weeks  
to get this far, and I swear it looks like they're doing more damage  
than they're fixing. Months, probably. And all the while we'll be wading  
through the latest pile of bureaucratic bullshit from uptown, just trying  
to get the funding to fix the goddam roof before winter. As if there's a  
question of whether or not it needs to be fixed. Christ, Morgan,  
there's a pile of rubble on our roof big enough to fill an Olympic-sized  
pool!"  
He stepped back and raised both hands, palms out. "Easy,  
Captain, you're preaching to the choir here. Save it for the bigwigs,  
okay?"  
"Sorry, Morgan. I've been getting five calls a day about it,  
even when I was in the hospital, and I don't know how many couriers  
with papers for me to sign. It's just getting under my skin."  
"Hey, I know how it is. We've all been worked over. I mean,  
first it was the news crews, and then the gawkers -- we oughtta talk  
to the mayor or the governor or somebody and make gawking a  
crime -- and then the contractors, and now these clowns."  
"We're just lucky more people weren't hurt. When I think how  
bad it could have been ..." she shivered.  
"Uh, Captain, that was your office." He pointed at the door.  
"Oh. Right. Didn't recognize it with the plywood where my  
name used to be."  
"I'm sure they'll get around to getting you a new window. Like  
sometime in the year 2000."  
"Very funny, Morgan. Now get to work or I'll find something to  
charge you with."  
"Yes, Ma'am!" He doffed his hat and sauntered back through  
the maze of scaffolds.  
Maria Chavez let herself into her office. She hadn't seen it in  
six weeks, not since the rescue teams had carried her out on a  
stretcher. The window, which had blown out in the explosions, had  
been covered with another sheet of plywood. The room was therefore  
dim and shadowy despite the bright afternoon outside.  
She flipped on the lights and one of the overhead  
flourescents swung down like a trapdoor. It rocked crazily, casting  
moving fans of brightness. Grit, glass, dust, and debris littered the  
carpet. Her desk was upended -- when had that happened? Maybe  
during the blast, maybe after when the room seemed a haze of cops  
and firefighters and paramedics. She hadn't been thinking too clearly  
at that point.  
She picked her way through the mess and righted the desk.  
She then stooped to gather her things from the floor. Blotter,  
telephone, in/out basket, nameplate, trifold picture frame. The glass  
on that one was somehow miraculously unbroken. She brushed it off,  
looked at the photos.  
The phone rang, startling her. She nearly dropped the frame,  
juggled it, caught it, and set it safely on the desk with her heart  
hammering madly. She grabbed the phone and punched the  
button by the blinking light.  
"Chavez," she said, pleased that her voice came out crisp  
and efficient.  
"Mom? Wow, that was lucky! I tried you at home but nobody  
was there so I thought I'd try your work, even though I didn't think you  
were back yet."  
"Sarah? Honey, hello! How are you?"  
"Great! Mom, guess what! Dad's getting married!"  
The strength went out of her legs. She fell into her chair,  
dimly grateful that it was still upright in its accustomed place. Her  
breath caught in a strangled gasp.  
Oblivious to the shocked silence on the other end, her  
youngest child babbled. Sarah had just turned ten, wished she was  
sixteen, but in her excitement was reduced to approximately age  
seven.   
"Her name's Rhonda, kind of a funny name, I never knew  
anybody named that before, but she's really nice and she's got brown  
hair and she always wears it in these really cool braids and she's  
teaching me how to braid my hair, and they're getting married in three  
weeks and I get to be a bridesmaid, not just a flower girl, 'cause that's  
for babies, but a real bridesmaid and wear a dress, you gotta see it,  
it's so cool, it's this blue color, Dad says it's called turquoise, and it's  
got these ruffles down the back and a big bow, and I get to wear a  
hat, and Aunt Julie is gonna come, and we're gonna have wedding  
cake and champagne and Dad says I can even try some, though he  
thinks I won't like it but I bet I will --"  
"Sarah, honey, slow down," Maria finally managed.  
"Yeah, okay, but isn't it great?"  
"Great," she echoed listlessly.  
"Oh, and I forgot to tell you the coolest part! Rhonda's folks  
live out in the country, and they've got a ranch, and real horses! And  
while they're honeymooning, they're going to Hawaii, you and Dad  
always talked about going to Hawaii, remember, but while they go,  
me and Josh get to stay on the ranch with the horses! Two whole  
weeks!"  
Maria shook her head, trying to assimilate all this information.  
Finally she settled on the most important part. "Honey, you and Josh  
could stay with me."  
"Mo-o-om! Horses!"  
"I'd really like it if you'd stay with me, Sarah."  
"But Dad says me and Josh should spend time with  
Rhonda's folks because we're gonna be like a real family now! And  
Dad says you work all the time, so we'd be a bother."  
"You're never a bother!"  
"Josh is all mad, though, because they're getting married on  
a Saturday and so he'll have to miss his stupid softball game, but it  
doesn't matter because he can't pitch anyway, and Dad says Josh  
should be there and be happy because we're finally going to have a  
real mom."  
Maria winced. "Sarah --"  
"Oh, but I'm supposed to tell you that we can't come see you  
that weekend, you know, because of the wedding? So maybe next  
month, and I can tell you all about the horses and everything."  
"Your father should be the one telling me this," Maria  
snapped. "Who does he think he is, just making plans without even  
consulting me? That's supposed to be my weekend. I hardly ever get  
to see you and your brother, and your father is always coming up with  
reasons to interfere!"  
"But, mom, it's his wedding," Sarah said in a small meek  
voice.  
"Oh, honey, I'm sorry. I shouldn't be yelling at you. I'm not  
mad at you. Sarah? Honey? Are you still there?"  
Muffled, distant sobbing and a click.  
"Shit."  
She hung up the phone and glared at it so hotly it should  
have melted. Then, in a fit of childish pique, she shoved it off the  
desk. It struck the floor with a surprised "ting!"  
She picked up the picture frame again and turned it over and  
over in her hands, watching the three faces of her children revolve.  
Little Sarah. Josh, who would be twelve soon, with his dreams of  
playing in the majors. And Carmen, her oldest, who was in California.  
Carmen wouldn't be going to the wedding. She had never  
accepted her mother's second husband. To Carmen, Alan  
Henderson had been an unwelcome intrusion into their lives, her half-  
brother and half-sister annoyances. When she'd been able to escape  
to college, she had gone as far from home as she could while still  
staying within the continental U.S.  
Maria opened a drawer, found her address book, and looked  
up the number for the large house Carmen shared with five other  
girls, then closed the book and returned it to its resting place.  
Calling Carmen would do no good. All she'd be doing was  
setting herself up for an earful of "I told you so," with an extra helping  
of cool indifference. It had been four years since they had seen each  
other, months since they'd spoken, only communicating by the  
occasional duty letter. For all Maria knew, Carmen might have  
graduated already, without so much as an announcement, let alone  
an invitation.  
Alarmed to find herself on the verge of tears, Maria forced  
herself to get up and start cleaning her office. Heedless of her leg  
and cast, she climbed onto her desk to try and wedge the flourescent  
light back into its socket. Then a trip to the janitor's closet for cleaning  
supplies (past either another coffee break or the continuation of the  
first). Then she dusted, vacuumed, filled three of the large size trash  
bags with debris, beat the plaster dust out of her chair and off her  
rump once she remembered she'd been sitting in it -- probably gave  
the loafers in the hall a good laugh passing them with what looked  
like a big white handprint on her butt -- and finally she looked around  
and nodded with satisfaction.  
Oh, it would just get wrecked again when the workers came  
to fix her window, but for now it was passable.  
Her leg was pounding dully. She grabbed her purse and  
headed for the ladies' room, noting that the hall was empty of people.  
Just the scaffolds and tools standing around, like some working  
man's Roanoke Island. It wasn't until she looked at her watch -- 8:48  
PM -- that she realized she'd spent about five hours cleaning.  
She found a mini free sample of Advil in her purse and  
swallowed the tablets with a glass of water, then looked in the mirror.  
Thank God nobody had seen her, looking like a hag with a corkscrew  
hairdo and a face covered with smudges. She washed and  
straighened herself as best she could.  
"Why bother?" she asked her reflection. "Nobody to go home  
to. Maybe I should call Muriel and see what she's up to."  
She considered the idea for about thirty seconds, then  
canned it. Muriel, twice divorced and quite happy about it, would  
suggest that they go out. She'd encourage Maria to tart herself up  
like a twenty-year old and drag her to some dingy club where the  
music was so loud it seemed like your head would explode, and  
where young people writhed and gyrated in what they thought was  
dancing.  
Instead, leaving the ladies' room, her eye fell upon the door  
leading to the stairs.  
"Today's been such a perfect day," she said, still not aware  
she was speaking aloud. "Why not go up and look at the clocktower?  
That'll be the cherry on the whole goddam sundae."  
Her leg complained with each stair riser, but Maria grimly  
ignored it and climbed all the way to the top floor of the precinct. Up  
here, the damage was worse. The floor was two inches deep in  
plaster chunks, most of which had fallen out of the walls. She could  
see a dinosaurian skeleton of exposed beams and timbers.  
The old archives, dating back to a time when this building  
had been a branch of the city library, were a chaotic mess of toppled  
shelves, strewn books, and torn pages like drifts of autumn leaves.  
Looking at all that paper, she was amazed the whole place hadn't  
gone up like a Roman Candle. An ancient spiral staircase, missing  
more steps than a first-time ballet student, was tilted at a sickening  
angle. The trapdoor to which it led was open, with an intestinal  
dangling of wires and insulation.  
Instead of trying to navigate the spiral stair and trap door,  
Maria searched for the door marked "Attic." She found it behind a  
jackstraw tumble of beams but was able to pick her way through. She  
reached for the doorhandle, knowing that it probably wasn't safe to  
be up here, knowing the place could collapse at any moment,  
knowing that nobody knew where she was and if she fell and broke  
her other leg, she would die a slow, horrible death up here.  
She turned the handle anyway.  
It was locked.  
Locked?  
She frowned. To the best of her awareness, this door wasn't  
kept locked. She examined the handle. It looked much newer than  
the rest of the door, as if someone had replaced the knob, plate, and  
whole works at some time in the not-too-distant past.  
A new flavor of curiosity mixed with her grim desire to survey  
the ruins. Who would lock the attic? And why? There was nothing to  
see up there except the rusty old clock machinery, and that was just  
a crumbling mess now.  
Could the news stories have been true?  
She barely allowed that thought to flit across her  
consciousness before banishing it to the Home for Stupid Ideas.  
Gargoyles. Yeah, right, as Elisa would say.  
But why think of Elisa?  
Elisa had been hiding something. For a long time. Her  
comings and goings at odd hours, not terribly unusual for a cop. Her  
preference -- no, downright insistence -- on working the night shift.  
The wild reports that her collars gave. Reports of monsters.  
Monsters. Gargoyles.  
"Bullshit!" she said, and the sound of her own voice brought  
her back to normality. What was she doing, creeping around up here  
in the dark, in this old place like a haunted castle? All she needed  
was eerie music and Bela Lugosi to come gliding along in his cape.  
No wonder she was having strange thoughts. The smart thing to do  
would be to forget about it, go home, make tea, and relax.  
So she slammed her shoulder against the door.  
It gave way with ridiculous ease. She stumbled forward,  
kicked a chunk of wood with her bad foot, yelped, nearly fell, and had  
to hang onto the edge of the door to steady herself. She saw that the  
solid brass tongue of the lock had just torn clear through the  
doorframe, which was splintered down to tissue-thickness.  
Ahead of her, a rickety flight of stairs looked like the road to  
Hell, despite the fact that they were going up instead of down.  
She picked her way up those stairs as carefully as a brain  
surgeon at work. A cool draft helped guide her. She smelled dust,  
smoke, and stale popcorn.  
That brought her to a halt. Popcorn?  
She shook her head and continued. At last, the shattered  
dome of the clock tower was the only thing standing (barely) between  
her and the star-strewn sky. She stepped over a huge metal VII, and  
eased around the warped and half-melted minute hand which was  
embedded point-first into the floor like some sort of ornate harpoon.  
She bruised her shin (not the broken one, thank God for  
small favors) against the television.  
Television?  
She bent to examine it. With her thumb, she rubbed off the  
smoky residue on the front lower edge, uncovering an M, an A, a G,  
an N, and another A. The rest was beyond recognition, but she didn't  
need to be a genius to guess what the last three letters would be.  
Where the screen should have been was a gaping empty  
socket ringed with shards of glass. Inside were the blackened,  
scorched electronic guts.  
And near the television was something else. An armchair.  
The overstuffed behemoth that had belonged to Detective Prosky,  
she was sure of it. Prosky had retired several months ago, and she'd  
made sure to tell him to take the damn thing with him or throw it in  
the dumpster. In fact, she knew he'd moved it because Elisa had  
volunteered to --  
Elisa?  
What the hell was going on?  
Whatever it was, she knew it couldn't be anything bad. After  
all, she'd known Elisa ever since the day the younger woman was  
born. She and Carlos had been godparents to all three Maza kids.  
Carlos.  
Oh, God!  
Crushing loneliness and grief engulfed her. Anguish knotted  
her stomach, closed her throat, squeezed her heart, and for a  
moment she was sure she was going to die before she could let it  
out. Then the tears she had successfully battled downstairs won  
through. She uttered a huge braying wail and flung herself into the  
armchair.  
She cried like she hadn't cried in years. Not even at Carlos'  
funeral, or in the horrible solitary days following his death, had she  
given way to such a fury of tears. She'd had to be strong then, for  
little Carmen, and had thrown herself into her work, wanting to be the  
best cop there was, not only because Carlos had been a cop,  
because Carlos had given his life in the line of duty, but so that she  
could do her part to put a stop to the sort of violence that had taken  
him away from her, so that other little girls like Carmen would never  
have to have a parent tell them, "We have to be very brave now."  
At last, the storm began to pass. Her weeping gradually  
subsided into chest-hitching. And just before she heard the voice, her  
cop instinct told her she was being watched.  
"Och, lass, sure as it canna be so bad as all that."  
She whirled, eyes ticking rapidly over the heaps of stone, the  
fallen timbers. A thousand shadows, a thousand places easily big  
enough to conceal a man.  
"Wh--who's there?" she said, mortified at the pitiful quavering  
tone.  
"Dinna take on so," the voice said. It was a kindly voice,  
soothing yet gravelly, and the accent inspired an instinctive trust. "I  
mean ye no harm."  
"Then show yourself," she challenged, no longer frightened  
but still concerned. She was unarmed, after all, and in a cast she  
doubted her martial arts training would be terribly effective.  
The voice chuckled warmly. "Now, I dinna think that's a good  
idea, lass. Ye're the captain, are ye not? Captain Chavez?"  
"Yes. Who are you?" She caught herself feeling absurdly  
flattered to be called lass. Well past forty, mother of three, she was  
hardly qualified for the title.  
"I'm called Hudson, if it please ye. Are ye well? I dinna mean  
to intrude, but 'tis fair heartbreaking to see a lady cry."  
"I'm fine," she said weakly. "What is this? Why are you  
hiding?" Inspiration struck. "You lived here, didn't you? The television,  
the chair ... but how did you get around with nobody seeing you?"  
"I used to live here, that much be true. No more, 'tis a  
shame, for we were fond o' this place for all it wasn't so grand as our  
true home."  
She heard him move and was pretty sure she had his  
location pinpointed. A large man, by the sound, probably one of New  
York's legions of homeless. "It's not safe to be up here. You must  
have been out when it blew up. Come out, and we'll find you a place  
to stay. There are a lot of good shelters."  
He chuckled again. "Ye're a one, aren't ye, lass? 'Twas my  
thought to ease yer worries when I saw ye weeping fit to die, and not  
two minutes later ye're trying to comfort me. I assure ye, I'm in no  
need of a new home yet. We're back where we belong. I just came  
by to see the old place. We'd all stayed away after the explosion."  
"What do you mean we? Did you have friends living up  
here?"  
Something rustled in the shadows, sounding a little like  
sheets flapping leisurely in the line and a little like fallen leaves  
blowing along the ground. "My family, lass. My clan."  
She rose from the chair. "Come out. I promise, I'm not going  
to arrest you."  
"I dinna fear that. But, lass, ye've already had a trial of an  
evening by the look of it, and I'd not be the one to scare ye."  
"I don't scare easily. Besides, I prefer talking to someone  
when I can see his face."  
He sighed heavily. "Well, I suppose ye'd be learning about us  
some time." He stepped out of the shadows.  
Maria Chavez collapsed back into the chair, second time  
tonight she'd done that without looking, and luck was still with her  
because she landed squarely in it instead of spilling to the floor. Her  
limbs felt numb, her jaw hung loose, her eyes felt large as saucers.  
"You -- you're a gargoyle! You're real!"  
"I always thought so," he said. "Elisa'd been wanting to tell  
ye, but she feared ye might not take it well."  
She stared at him. Her head was filled with questions, all  
tumbling over each other. Questions about him, his kind, Elisa, news  
stories, criminal reports, and dozens more. But all she could do was  
sit and stare.  
If she'd had to guess his age, she would have said a well  
preserved sixty-five. He was a bit on the portly side but more  
muscular than flabby, with leathery skin, a lush grey beard, one eye  
filmed by a yellow cataract, and huge wings sprouting from his back.  
He was dressed like someone out of one of those cheesy swords-  
and-sorcery movies Josh adored, in a loincloth and some sort of  
armored vest. A sword hung at his waist. Taloned feet. And to  
complete the picture, a stout limber tail.  
"Oh, my God, I don't believe this," she muttered.  
"Nay, lass, I'm as real as ye are." He came closer, moving  
with a strange grace that belied his bulk. She thought of pro football  
players, a dozen years after retirement, maybe coaching high school  
teams. Such men might move like that.  
"Elisa knows about you?" she asked.  
"Aye. We've been helping her and Matt for some time now."  
"But if you lived here, why did you blow the place up?"  
He shook his head, and a grim line furrowed his brow. "We'd  
ne'er harm our home. A gargoyle can no more hurt his home than  
stop breathin' the air, to paraphrase an old saying. 'Twas enemies  
brought on us by one of our own turned bad. Believe me, lass, we're  
not yer foes."  
She stood again, carefully, half-expecting the world to spin  
out from under her. He was taller than she was, and about twice as  
broad. She discarded the football player image. He carried himself  
more like a professional soldier, old but still extremely competent.  
"I have so many questions, but I don't know where to begin,"  
she said.  
"Then let me. What were ye doin' up here, lass? What's got  
ye so upset? If Elisa'd seen ye like that, she'd have been distraught.  
And Elisa distraught means Goliath movin' mountains to set things  
right. Since he's not here, 'tis up to me."  
She looked up into his careworn face. Already, after only  
minutes of acquaintance, he did not seem monstrous in the least.  
Nor did she perceive any threat from him.  
She wasn't a woman who shared her problems with anyone,  
especially not strangers, so it surprised her to hear herself start  
telling him about her conversation with Sarah.  
Once the words started, it was as if a dam had burst. She  
told him about her short and ill-fated marriage to Alan, about her  
estrangement from Carmen, and finally, blinking back more  
tears though she wouldn't have thought she had any to spare, about  
Carlos.   
* *  
MARIA'S STORY:  
"He was a cop, of course. It was really sort of funny. He and  
Peter Maza, Elisa's father, were both teen rebels. Hated authority.  
Two of a kind, a couple of punk kids from the Southwest. They both  
ran away from home at around the same time, hooked up at a truck  
stop in Texas, and were like brothers from the day they met. Just two  
teen rebels, drifting like tumbleweeds.  
"And then, for no reason either of them could ever explain,  
they decided to become cops. They were good, damn good, the best.  
They had chances at promotions early on, but both of them liked  
working the street. They liked getting right in the thick of it and  
beating up on the bad guys. They both had tempers, tried to hide it  
but it was there. If you know Elisa, I'm sure you've seen some of that.  
"I met Carlos in '67. I was just a kid myself, but bright,  
skipped ahead in school. I was doing a summer internship helping  
out around the police station. Back then, there were hardly any  
female cops. My mother thought I was crazy. So did all my friends,  
what few I had. But I stuck to it.  
"I guess we were all still rebels, even if we were cops. Things  
were different in those days, so when Peter married Diane and I  
married Carlos, we heard a lot of disapproval about mixed marriages.  
Hah! Mixed marriages. Now nobody bats an eye; instead they get all  
worked up about the gays. If it's not one thing, it's another. Crazy.  
Stupid, and crazy.  
"Carlos and I were married in '69. None of that love-in and  
live-together nonsense for us. We weren't cut out to be hippies.  
Carmen came along in '71, just a year after Elisa was born. They  
were so cute together as kids. And Derrek -- by the time Carmen was  
seven she had the biggest crush on him! Now he's off working for  
David Xanatos at some private facility upstate. I'm glad he's happy,  
but it hurt to lose a damn good cop.  
"Anyway, Carlos and I both worked, but we were still able to  
provide a good home and family life for Carmen. I wanted to be the  
first female police captain in the city. Carlos supported me every step  
of the way. I didn't quite make it first, but I did make it, and that's what  
counts. But by then, he wasn't around to see it.  
"It was 1980. May 15th. He and Peter, still partners after all  
those years, starting to think about retiring, walked into the middle of  
a domestic dispute. They weren't even on a call, just stopping to pick  
up Carmen at a friend's birthday party on the way home. We were  
supposed to have a barbeque that night. Early in the season, but it  
had been warm and beautiful. Diane and I were at our place with the  
other kids, but Carmen had that birthday party. Wouldn't have missed  
it for the world.  
"The neighbors in one of the other apartments were having a  
fight, and the man pulled a gun. His wife screamed and ran into the  
hall, just as Carlos and Peter were coming in. Her husband came  
after her and just started shooting wildly, spraying bullets, and Carlos  
was killed before he even got his gun out. Peter was hit in the leg, but  
shot the guy. The woman had been shot three times. She died on the  
way to the hospital. So Carlos died for nothing.  
"And Carmen ... when the shooting stopped, other people in  
the apartments started looking out to see what was going on.  
Carmen saw her father dead in the hallway."  
* *  
The flood of words ended as abruptly as it had begun. Maria  
was sitting on the edge of the chair, head down, hands dangling  
limply as she spoke.  
At some point in her story, Hudson had perched on the arm  
of the chair, which had groaned alarmingly but held. She felt his  
large, rough, yet tender hand on her shoulder.  
Touched by a gargoyle, she thought randomly. The Daily  
Tattler will pay big bucks for this.  
"And ye kept up police work," he said admiringly.  
"It was all I knew. I had Carmen to support. The insurance  
company was dragging its feet, making up all sorts of reasons not to  
pay. Peter and Diane wanted to help us out but I was stubborn and  
foolish. He retired the next year. I was surprised when he encouraged  
but Derrek and Elisa to join the force, but that's the way Peter is. And  
I needed some way to fill the time. The empty time, without Carlos."  
"What about yer daughter?"  
"She blamed herself. Kids do that, even when it isn't their  
fault. If she hadn't insisted on going to the party, her father wouldn't  
have died. That was how she saw it. She pulled away from me; now I  
know she was afraid I'd be killed too, and so she was trying to  
distance herself. I wanted her to have a real family. I should have let  
the Mazas be our family. Instead, I married Alan. An investment  
broker. They never get shot in the line of duty. Their jobs are boring.  
Safe. Unless there's a stock market crash and they all take a leap."  
"Did ye love him, lass?"  
"Not like Carlos. Alan was safe, like I said. A good provider.  
Reliable. I wanted to make it work, but Carmen was just as  
determined to see it fail. She hated him from the first day she met  
him, never gave him a chance, never even agreed to try. Then I  
thought that more kids might help, give her something to connect  
with. So we had Josh, and Sarah. And two years after Sarah was  
born, Alan left me. By then Carmen was away at school, not college  
but a girls' boarding school in Massachusets, she'd wanted it so  
much and it was such a relief to get her out of the house, I know it  
sounds awful to say, but it was true, I had two young kids and a high-  
pressure job, and I couldn't take the constant bitter harping from a  
teenager. I'm rambling, just like Sarah does. I'm sorry."  
"Ramble all ye want, lass. Ye'll feel the better for it. I know  
how it pains to lose a loved one. Ye lost yer mates, ye've somewhat  
lost yer children, ye're feeling clanless and lost. 'Tis a sorry way to  
feel. I canna undo what's been done, but I can offer ye a shoulder to  
lean on."  
She looked up at him, searched his mournful eyes. "You've  
been through the same thing, haven't you?"  
"Aye, bits of it. We dinna have marriage, divorce, and these  
things among gargoyles, but I've only a scarce few of my clan left.  
We were betrayed. Only a handful of us survived, though we've since  
been in the way of knowing that there be others of our kind left in the  
world. Our children, well, they be raised all together, by the clan, and  
we'd ne'er in the past given much worry over whose eggs were  
whose. That may be changing, but back then, we'd no way o'  
knowing nor cause to wonder which of the hatchlings were our own  
flesh and blood. Now they're gone, most o' them. And my mate, too,  
though she were taken from me long before the Vikings destroyed  
the rest o' them."  
* *  
SCOTLAND, 898 A.D.  
If she'd had a name, it would have been Joy.  
They didn't have names then, nor did they need them. The  
one the humans would call Goliath would not even be hatched for  
almost forty years. Names were a human affectation, maybe the only  
way they could tell each other apart.  
But Joy was how he thought of her. Joy was what filled his  
heart each time he laid eyes upon her, and joy marked every night of  
her life. She found it wherever she looked, in the simplicity of a  
flower, in the beauty of the moon, in the soft music of the river.  
The gargoyle who would in the fullness of time come to be  
called Hudson roared and stretched, shedding his casing of stone  
skin. His rookery brothers and sisters were waking all around him. A  
cool breeze, salt-scented, washed over them invigoratingly.  
Joy swooped down to meet him as he stepped off his  
rampart. "A beautiful night!"  
Others might have found fault with her appearance, for she  
was not lean and hard and muscular like the other females. Her form  
had a more pleasing roundness, softer curves. Others might have  
thought her skin was too dark a shade of green, her copper-hued hair  
too fine and silky, her brow spines too stubby. Not he. To him, she  
was perfect.  
"As beautiful as ye," he said, grasping her forearms in his  
hands and leaning to brush his brow spines against hers in a gesture  
of affection.  
She tugged playfully at his ear and curled her tail around his  
calf. "I was thinking o' flying out to the standing stones tonight. Come  
with me?"  
"What o' the barbarians?" he asked. "We drove them off last  
night, but we should chase them further from our home. The elders  
will want us to go after them."  
"Must ye always think like a warrior? When is the time for  
play, my love?"  
"Will ye never think like a warrior?" another of their sisters  
interrupted. Crimson-skinned, with a blaze of white hair and a proud  
sharp beak, she was the fiercest fighter among them. Already, her  
eyes blazed with the anticipation of battle, and her voice dripped  
scorn for the peaceful Joy.  
"There be more to life than this!" Joy insisted. "We'll not be at  
war always. What will the rest o' ye do when the enemies are no  
more and there's naught to fill yer nights but imagining archers in the  
shadows?"  
The crimson one turned to Hudson. Her tone changed to a  
challenge. "Are ye going to go flitting off with her then, like Oberon's  
pixies playing among the thistles? Or are ye going to stay and be a  
real gargoyle?"  
He hesitated, too long. Joy gave him a hurt but  
understanding smile, then turned and stepped up onto the wall.  
"Wait --" he called, but she sprang out and unfolded her  
lovely wings. The wind caught them and carried her away, not down  
into the courtyard where the rest of the clan was gathering, but out  
across the fields.  
Crimson laughed mockingly. She stepped closer to him, her  
curved disemboweling talons clicking on the stone (centuries later,  
when he watched Jurassic Park, he would think of her). "Come on,  
then. If ye're e'er to have any status in this clan, ye'd do well to forget  
her." She ran a claw down his arm, seductive but also hard enough to  
hurt.  
He shook her off, ignoring her angry hiss, and looked in the  
direction Joy had flown. He braced a hand on the rampart, ready to  
launch himself after her, when the clan leader roared his summons.  
With a heavy sigh, he joined the rest of the warriors.  
"These barbarians will not threaten our home again," the  
leader was saying, turning his massive triple-horned head from side  
to side to survey his clan. Above the horns, a plate of bone swept  
back like a crown. His normally pale blue skin was flushed darker  
with anger. He raised his arms to the sky, stretching out the  
membraneous wings that reached from his hips to his wrists. "I will  
go, and twice ten of the warriors with me, to drive them across the  
river and far from here."  
More than forty gargoyles were gathered around him, and  
they began buzzing and muttering excitedly amongst themselves,  
each wanting to be among the twice ten, each fearing to be left  
behind.  
From windows and balconies, human faces watched them  
with mingled curiosity, revulsion and fear. Three approached, men in  
rough peasant's garb, carrying large trays heaped with bread. They  
skirted around the gargoyles and set the trays on the roof of the long,  
low shed that hugged the inner wall. Then, as timid as mice, they  
crept away. Not once did they speak, nor meet the gaze of any  
gargoyle.  
"Will they ne'er accept us?" the one who would be Hudson  
wondered aloud.  
His closest rookery brother clapped a hand on his shoulder.  
"Would that it were so, after all this time. Most of these were not even  
alive when you and I cracked shell. But they hear tales from their  
elders, of the days before men and gargoyle lived side by side. They  
see us as monsters for our differences, and think we do not belong  
among them."  
"They are the ones who dinna belong," Crimson snarled.  
"These rocks were home to our kind when men were squatting in  
caves. They came here unwelcome, stole our home, and we should  
have fought for it. Had I but been hatched then --"  
"These humans dinna be our enemies," Hudson said. "Sure  
as they're not our friends, but mayhap 'tis still needing time. Ours was  
the first clutch o' eggs to hatch within these walls, so --"  
"Aye, forty years agone!" she interrupted. "If they've not  
accepted us in forty years, they'll not be accepting us in four  
hundred!"  
"The time will come," their brother said, gripping each of  
them by the shoulder, gently, but with the promise of increased  
pressure, "when human and gargoyle live together in peace. You and  
I may not be there to see it, but our children will."  
Hudson nodded. "Ye speak well, my brother. If more o' our  
clan were o' such a mind as ye, methinks yer prediction may well  
come true."  
"Fool's talk," Crimson declared. "What I want to know is who  
goes to fight the barbarians!"  
Their leader had wisely let them talk among themselves as  
they feasted on bread. They could hunt and did so quite well, and  
gathered wild fruits, nuts, and berries from the far reaches of the  
land, but baking was a treat of which they'd not yet grown weary.  
The humans gave bread to them in thanks for their defense  
of the castle, and in trade for the game the gargoyles brought, but  
even as Hudson chewed thoughtfully on a warm doughy loaf, he  
reflected that the humans had never welcomed the gargoyles to eat  
with them. They did not live among humans so much as alongside  
them, each group tolerating the other but no ties of friendship.  
The leader raised his arms again, and the clan fell silent. He  
moved among them, selecting his warriors. Even as he felt the  
leader's claw tap his chest, Hudson thought of Joy and wondered if  
she had been waiting for him to follow, if she was waiting even now at  
the standing stones.  
* *  
The pursuit was a success. The barbarians, still battered and  
terrified from their previously rebuffed attack on Castle Wyvern, were  
unprepared for the winged force that swept down upon their camp.  
They panicked and fled, few having the presence of mind to  
even grab a weapon let along organize a proper defense. Whooping  
and screeching gargoyles dove on them, ripping and rending, tails  
lashing, wings buffeting campires into furies of spark and ash.  
A few surviving humans scattered into the forest night. Some  
gargoyles, Crimson among them, went gleefully hunting, moving from  
treetop to treetop, cat-agile and silent, only to pounce with horrifying  
suddenness. Others remained at the ruined camp, looting through  
the wreckage for foodstuffs, jewelry, and useable weapons.  
Hudson wandered restlessly among his clan. He had done  
his part in the battle, fighting with the sure skill that seemed in him  
more innate than taught, but when the foes were gone, the purpose  
vanished with them. He had no patience for chasing stragglers or  
collecting trinkets. His thoughts were still of Joy.  
She wouldn't have been here anyway, not at a battle. She  
had neither taste nor talent for it. Others, Crimson most of all, made  
fun of her whenever the leader was not around to put a stop to the  
teasing. They said she was good for nothing but turning eggs and  
tending hatchlings. A gargoyle who couldn't fight was, in their eyes,  
no gargoyle at all.  
"Something amiss, lad?" the leader asked him.  
His wings jerked in instinctive reaction to being startled and  
the leader chuckled.  
"Nothing amiss," he replied.  
"You do not seem to be enjoying the spoils," the leader  
observed.  
He shrugged. "This wasn't about spoils. We dinna fight for  
gold. We fight to protect our home and clan. This --" he waved a  
hand at his brothers and sisters and elders, calling to each other to  
show off their newest prizes, "this isn't our way."  
The leader nodded proudly. "I knew you'd be thinking that  
way. That is why I've chosen you to be my second in command."  
Hudson stared at him. The choice of a second was  
something the leader had been putting off for months now, since his  
previous second had fallen in battle. The younger gargoyles had  
begun to despair of him ever making the decision. "Me?"  
"Aye, lad. You fight well, not the best warrior but you keep  
your head about you and do not go off in a blood fury --" the leader's  
eyes flicked momentarily to Crimson, "and you've just stated for me  
nice as could be the gargoyle way. You'd be well suited."  
Hudson inclined his head. "I am honored. I'll do ye proud, this  
I promise."  
They gripped forearms and shook. "I'll be announcing it  
tomorrow night, then." The leader held something out to him and he  
reflexively took it.  
It was a sword. Short but sharp, finely balanced, made of  
good-quality steel. He held it up, admiring the liquid run of moonlight  
along the curved blade. "'Tis fair lovely!"  
"Aye, and yours. You took on the leader of these barbarians,  
and I want you to have his blade to remember this by. Not as booty,  
mind you, for you're right in saying it isn't our way, but as a token of  
your status."  
Hudson inclined his head respectfully again. The leader  
moved on, congratulating his warriors, offering humor and  
condolences to the few injured. Hudson turned the blade, marvelling  
on how right it felt in his hand, awed and a bit nervous over his new  
status, his new responsibility.  
* *  
Not even the heavy rain could dampen his happiness tonight.  
The leader's announcement brought hearty congratulations  
from the rest of the clan, approval from the elders mixed with some  
mild envy from his brothers and sisters.  
To celebrate the victory over the barbarians and the naming  
of a new second, they even indulged in a feast, though normally such  
rites of food were considered human customs and better watched  
than imitated. That didn't matter tonight. Tonight, the humans were  
the ones to watch while the gargoyles feasted and let loose their  
excitement in wild spiraling flights and aerial acrobatics.  
The festivities had come to an end a short time ago, when  
the weather worsened. Mated pairs flew off for some privacy, more  
out of courtesy to the humans than any real modesty of their own. It  
was the same reason they'd begun to affect clothes, although they  
had soon discovered that clothes offered some protection from the  
elements and occasionally from weapons.  
Hudson, his heart in his throat, approached Joy. "Would ye  
care to fly with me a while? We could go to yer standing stones, if it  
be not too wet for ye."  
"A fair wonderful idea!" Joy cried. The fanlike crest around  
her head unfolded in a dazzle of red and green and yellow, as it  
always did when her feelings were strong. She embraced him, her  
wings pressing against his three times in light, fluttery touches that  
sent delicious shivers up his spine.  
Hand in hand, they sprang from the high tower and glided  
through the rain. The water only drenched him but seemed to love  
Joy, making her skin gleam. True to her nature, she delighted in the  
power of the downpour, letting the wind carry her up into the  
wraithlike mists below the clouds, then diving, her hair streaming  
back between her wings.  
She wheeled and came up under him in imitation of the  
hunting games they had played as hatchlings. They wrestled, falling,  
laughing, seperating to climb high, then colliding again. On their third  
collision, he whipped his tail around her waist.  
"Ah, now I've got ye," he crowed.  
"I dinna think so!" she giggled, jabbing her fingers at his  
sides.  
"Eee-yah!" he shrieked, snapping his wings close about him  
and loosing his tail. He plunged thirty feet, then soared up again.  
"What sorcery be that?" he yelled, breathless.  
"Tickling!" she called, hovering on an updraft and waggling  
her fingers at him. "I learned it from the humans! Would ye care to  
see it again?"  
"Nay! So 'tis some human weapon?"  
"Nary a weapon, but a game."  
"Ye learned this at the castle?" He wracked his memory but  
couldn't recall seeing anything like what she'd just done.  
"At the village below the high lake," she replied.  
He gaped at her. "But that be beyond the river, beyond our  
boundaries! 'Tis forbidden!"  
She swooped to the ground and he followed. As she landed  
in the solemn and silent circle of stones, she folded her wings smartly  
into a cape and shook back her damp tresses. She stepped under a  
large slab of rock supported on two weather-smoothed pillars and  
made room for him.  
"Our clan protects the castle," she said, "just as it did the  
rocky highland before the humans came here. But what o' the others,  
the villagers, who dinna be so fortunate as to live in the castle? The  
poor, the peasants, who live all the year through with naught but  
wattle-and-daub?"  
"I'd ne'er though o' that. But sure as they'd be just as likely, or  
e'en more, to see us as monsters, for they've not known us these  
years past."  
"In some places, 'tis so, ye're right. Some villages I've gone  
to and been chased clear with flung stones and curses. But not all."  
He shook his head and blinked, trying to make sense of this.  
"Ye've gone to other villages? Shown yerself to humans? E'en though  
'tis forbidden?"  
She nodded. "All this time, ye've thought me to go about  
playing in the bubbling springs and gathering flowers. These things  
I've done, aye, but also have I gone among the humans."  
"Why are ye telling me this?" he asked, pushing an errant  
lock from her brow.  
"Ye're second in command now. Ye may someday be leader.  
And I --" she looked at the ground, then tipped her face up to his. "I'd  
be a poor leader's mate."  
"Och, lass," he said in a low voice.  
An expression he'd never expected to see on her face was  
there now, a deep sadness. The wetness on her cheeks could not be  
blamed entirely on the rain. "I've broken the law o' the clan. I've been  
a poor protector o' the castle, which should be as vital to me as  
breathing the very air. Ye're to be a keeper o' those laws. 'Twouldn't  
do for ye to mate with one such as myself."  
He touched her cheek, her brow spines, the folded  
membranes of her crest. "I do want ye as my mate," he said softly.  
"I've ne'er wanted another."  
"I've wanted ye, too, but it canna be so!" She turned away  
from him.  
"Why not?" He rested his hands on her caped shoulders. "Ye  
and I are one."  
"Now and forever," she whispered.  
"Ye can stop yer wanderings, and I'll ne'er need to tell the  
clan."  
"But I dinna want to stop my wanderings!" She whirled on  
him with surprising warrior's suddenness. "We'll not live always in the  
castle. We should know the humans and their ways. They teach me,  
and I help them my own way. I may be a poor warrior but a good  
fisher. Their children like me, they flock to me and beg me fly with  
them ... they are my friends."  
He couldn't speak. Friends, with humans? Such a thing had  
never been done, never even been considered possible. Humans  
and gargoyles might hate each other, or tolerate each other, but  
become friends? Live among them, as his brother had said? Human  
and gargoyle, together in peace?  
"Ye'll have to tell," she said, laying her palm alongside his  
face. "And mayhap I'll be an outcast."  
"Nay! Outcast from yer own clan? Such would ne'er happen!  
It ne'er has --"  
"Because none have e'er broken the law ere now," she  
finished.  
"Mayhap the law should change," he said. "Others in the clan  
think we should try to befriend the humans."  
"Come with me, meet them yerself! See that they're good  
and kind."  
"Across the river? Beyond our boundaries?" he asked  
doubtfully. "And the rain, 'tis growing worse. We've shelter here, or  
back at the castle ..."  
She sighed. "Ye dinna have to come, then. Go, go home to  
the castle and find yerself a mate better suited, a proper gargoyle."  
She left the shelter of the slab.  
"This isn't like ye," he said, going after her. "Ye're ne'er so  
gloomy."  
"Have I not cause to be? I'm losing ye. Had ye not been  
chosen second, mayhap 'twould have been different. I've loved ye  
since we were but first testing our wings, but we've no future now."  
He pulled her against him, wrapping arms and then wings  
around her. "A future without ye is none at all. Why canna I be  
second in command and still yer mate? Why canna we work together  
to help our clan learn to live among the humans? Others think as ye,  
true as they do. Not all, aye, but some."  
He could feel her clinging to him, wanting to believe.  
"Let us go, then," he said. "Let us go and meet yer human  
friends. And when we've done, I'll speak to the leader. If he'd no  
longer have me as his second, if he and the elders do wish to cast us  
out, at least we'll be together."  
She raised her head and looked at him. "Ye'd do that ... for  
me? Ye'd give up the clan?"  
"Aye, if I must."  
Her crests sprang up brilliantly, and her smile was as bright  
and dazzling as he imagined the sun to be. She voiced her  
excitement in a high shriek unlike any enraged roar he'd ever heard  
from the throat of another gargoyle. Her wings snapped open. Had  
any of his rookery brothers seen her in that instant, he doubted that  
she would lack for suitors.  
"Come!" she cried, clawing her way to the top of a pillar. "I  
canna wait for ye to meet then!"  
He watched admiringly as she launched herself, and reached  
for a handhold to follow. As he did, something nudged his leg. The  
sword. He looked down at it, at the prize which had been given to him  
when he was chosen.  
His doubts returned suddenly. By going with Joy, would he  
truly be helping his clan or would he be turning his back on them?  
His brother's words echoed in his ears. The time will come  
when human and gargoyle live together in peace. Joy was proving it  
could be done. He wanted to be a part of it too.  
He climbed the pillar and soared to meet her. The rain was a  
near-solid sheet, pelting them, making gliding difficult, but Joy's  
spirits were undampened. Twice, he nearly lost sight of her as he  
struggled to keep up.  
The dale of the standing stones diminished behind them.  
They glided over dense forest, where the hunting would be poor as  
the animals sheltered from the storm. Soon, the trees gave way to a  
rushing river. He had seen it just last night, only much further south,  
where it was wider and slower and moved over shallow fords. Here, it  
was deep and tightly channeled between walls of stone which  
seemed to be poorly containing the turbulent waters.  
"The river's high!" he called over the hissing and splashing of  
the rain.  
She looped back and glided beside him. Concern furrowed  
her brow and darkened her eyes. "I know. 'Tis not usually so. Look,  
ye can see where it floods into the forest!"  
"Mayhap we should go back," he suggested.  
"Nay, we're close now. The village lies just ahead, near the  
falls. Och, my love, ye should see the falls! And the lake, high in the  
mountains and ringed all in jagged stone! Methinks there may be  
caves there. It has the look o' a place where our kind might have  
lived. I'd planned to go exploring there soon. Mayhap we can go  
together."  
"On a clear night?" he asked hopefully, shaking in midair to  
dislodge water from his wings and hair.  
She laughed delightedly. "On any night ye wish!"  
A rumbling crash sounded in the distance. "What was that?"  
he called.  
"I dinna know. Thunder?"  
The rain worsened then, making conversation impossible, so  
he flew on and squinted for a sign of this village. They had crossed  
the river, moved beyond the boundaries of the clan's territory. He  
didn't know what he expected, a bolt of lightning to sear him from the  
sky, perhaps, but the world remained unchanged.  
"Nay! Och, nay!" he heard Joy scream ahead of him.  
He nearly slammed into her, for she hovered in frozen horror,  
hands outstretched as if to ward off the terrible sight.  
The source of the rumbling crash was all too clear now. He  
saw a lake, cradled in the bowl of a hilltop and ringed with jagged  
stone, just as Joy had described. But Joy had not mentioned a  
crumbling hole in the rim of the bowl where the jagged stones had  
fallen away. A hole through which water raged in a torrent, tumbling  
down the hillside in a churning violence of uprooted trees, mud, and  
boulders.  
"The lake!" he shouted. "It's o'erflowed!"  
She was still staring in horror, but he realized that she was  
not looking at the lake or the gushing water. Her gaze was fixed  
downward.  
At the village.  
At what was left of the village.  
At huts and carts and livestock, engulfed by the churning  
water. He saw a huge rock smash into a house, ripping apart its  
thatched roof and wooden walls. In a heartbeat, what had been a  
home was now a swirl of debris in the flood.  
Mixed in with the sounds of destruction were the sounds of  
screams. Humans clung to floating logs, only to be lost when other  
logs or boulders crashed over them. They swarmed into tall trees,  
which were undermined and toppled into the raging water. Their  
livestock were swept downstream by this new and brutal herdsman.  
He looked to Joy, stunned, not knowing what to do, but Joy  
wasn't there. Her moment of shock had passed and she was diving  
toward the village. She plucked a human child from the water as  
easily as she might have snared a fish. The child threw its small arms  
readily around her neck.  
A house, torn from its foundation, was spinning crazily under  
him. He saw two things at once. First, that it was about to collide with  
an ancient, massively thick tree. He knew without a doubt which  
would fare the worse in that collision. And second, that two humans  
were sprawled atop the house, their fingers digging desperately into  
the thatch.  
He went in low, under the branches of the tree. He would  
only have one pass, one chance. His hands closed unerringly on two  
humans, seizing one by a rope belt and the other by the back of the  
tunic. He ripped both humans free of their perch, wings beating and  
trying to get enough lift. The humans cried out, their limbs flailing  
frantically.  
The house struck the tree trunk in a shower of boards, which  
the greedy flood hastily devoured. Hudson, feeling like his arms were  
going to come loose at the shoulders, soared in a wide circle and  
deposited both humans in the stout branches of the very tree which  
had nearly claimed their lives. He didn't wait around for their thanks  
but went back out over the flood.  
He rescued more humans, some reaching up to him  
fearlessly, others unable to move, possibly even already dead. Those  
that he grabbed, he carried to the strongest trees. Some grabbed  
hold and clung with all their strength. Others drooped limply.  
He caught glimpses of Joy doing the same thing. Her face  
was set in a mask of grim determination which would have made the  
fiercest Viking step back, but her foe this time was furious Nature  
itself, who didn't back down because of a gargoyle or two.  
He saw a dog, standing on the seat of a wagon which was  
rapidly filling with water. The dog was drenched and yelping, dashing  
from one side of the seat to another. Hudson landed in the wagon  
bed, splashing up to his hips, and held out his arms. "Jump, boy!" he  
yelled.  
The dog growled at him nervously. The wagon dipped,  
wetting the dog to the belly, and it leapt at Hudson. He took to the air  
again with his armful of dog, but what could he do now? Couldn't put  
a dog in a tree! He wheeled and spotted a large flattish boulder out of  
the flood's path. It would do nicely. He set down the dog, which kept  
trying to lick his hands and face.  
"Help! Please, help!" he heard, and looked to see a woman  
kneeling on what might have been an upended chicken coop. "My  
baby!"  
Spinning just out of the woman's reach was a cradle holding  
a squalling infant. Water lapped over the side. The cradle tipped. The  
infant's cry turned into a bubbling yelp.  
"Noooooo!" the woman cried, and leaped clumsily into the  
water. The wave of her impact upset the cradle, capsizing it. Her  
shriek pealed to the unsympathetic clouds.  
Hudson plunged headfirst into the flood, his eyes quickly  
adjusting to the gloomy churning depths. He searched, saw nothing,  
was about to give up, and there! A tiny human! So small his hand  
could have wrapped entirely around it. He bore it swiftly to the  
surface.  
The child was limp, water streaming from its open mouth.  
The woman still paddling in frantic helplessness, saw her motionless  
child and began wailing in pure hysterics. She tore at her own hair,  
rent her face with her fingernails.  
Hudson, now battling the current of water instead of air,  
found his wings more of a problem than a help. He grabbed a tree,  
almost taking a branch in the eye, and laid the infant across the trunk  
on its stomach. He pressed gently on its back.  
Water gushed this time, amazing that such a small body  
could hold so much. He thumped on the baby's back the way he'd  
seen humans do when one of their number was choking.  
The baby moved beneath his hand. It hitched in a breath and  
began to scream in fear, pain, and outrage.  
Cradling it in the crook of his arm, he hauled himself onto the  
tree. The mother was nearby, but too lost in her grief to hear her  
child's cries and know it lived. He flicked her across the face with the  
tip of his tail. She broke off her wails and heard the crying, knew what  
it meant.  
He fished her out and pressed the child into her arms. She  
didn't need to be told to hold it tightly. He then swept her up and  
leaped, letting the air catch his wings. Strangest of all of the night's  
events, the woman, dangling dozens of feet in the air in the arms of a  
gargoyle, began to sing softly to her baby.  
Hudson set her down gently, atop the same boulder where  
he'd left the dog, which promptly began trying to lick his face again.  
As he turned to leave, a hand on his arm stopped him.  
It was the woman, her gaze now clear and calm. "Thank ye,"  
she said.  
The infant was quiet now, looking up at him. So different  
from a gargoyle hatchling! This child was soft and pink and toothless.  
But beautiful.  
He smiled at the woman and took to the air again. By now,  
the humans were all either saved or beyond saving. The flow seemed  
to be slowing, as the water level of the lake reached that of the  
broken hillside.  
"Gargoyle!" a human called, waving urgently from his perch  
in a tree. "Gargoyle! Your friend needs help!"  
Dread flooded his heart as surely as the water had flooded  
the village.  
"Where?" he called.  
The man gestured downstream. "A tree swept her away, her  
and Dougal!"  
Hudson spun in that direction, scanning the destruction  
desperately. He saw uprooted trees wedged against those yet  
standing. He saw the remains of houses, of oxen, of wagons. Of  
humans. He saw mud-spattered boulders lodged high in the  
branches of trees.  
And there, there against a pillar of rock very much like a  
standing stone, he saw Joy.  
A young boy was clinging to the pillar, his feet braced on a  
narrow ledge. He was sobbing and reaching down as if trying to take  
hold of Joy's floating, drifting arm.  
Hudson dropped beside the pillar and dug his claws in,  
stopping himself just above the water. He caught Joy's arm and  
pulled her up. She moved too easily, too bonelessly.  
"Och, sir, say she's all right," the boy pleaded. "She saved  
my life."  
He draped her over his shoulder and glided clumsily to a  
hillock, then laid her gently on the rainsoaked grass. Her head lolled.  
"Nay," he whispered. "Nay, love. Hold on 'til daybreak,  
please!"  
But already, her skin was beginning to stiffen and turn grey.  
Tears stung his eyes. He drew his sword and used the fine edge to  
slice off a long lock of her copper-hued hair. Then he held her close  
against his chest, feeling every stage of the transformation as if it  
was happening to him.  
Her body grew leaden and heavy, unyeilding. Her skin made  
a sound like thick ice underfoot as it plated over with stone. And then  
the stone began to crumble away, until she came to pieces in his  
arms. The pieces kept crumbling until only fine grey dust was left.  
"Ye and I are one," he said, his voice thick with sorrow. "Now  
and forever."  
He clenched a fistful of the dust and lifted it to his brow.  
"Goodbye, love." He let the dust sift through his fingers and blow  
away. The hair he kept, winding it around the hilt of his sword.  
Making the blade part of her, part of the clan. Now and forever.  
* *  
When he fell silent, Maria felt as if she was waking from a  
dream. She shook her head to dispel images of ancient Scotland  
clearer than any movie, and looked at him.  
He was still sitting on the arm of the chair, his head down as  
hers had been when she finished her tale. As he'd done, she put her  
hand on his shoulder.  
"What did you do then?" she asked.  
He sighed, seeming to diminish in size as he did so. "I stayed  
'til dawn, helping the humans save what o' their belongings they  
could. 'Twas the first day I'd spent outside o' the castle. Did I e'en  
worry that they might harm me as I slept? Nay. I was too weary to  
pay it mind, and sick with grief so that if they had shattered my stone  
form, 'twould almost have been welcome." He chuffed a sound  
almost like a laugh. "Do ye know, I think that boy, Dougal, that she  
gave her life to save, might've been the ancestor o' the lad Tom, who  
saved the eggs? 'Tis strange but fitting, methinks. Anyhow, after that,  
I returned to my clan and did my best to serve as second in  
command. And as leader, when the time came for that."  
"And you never took a new mate," she guessed. "You threw  
yourself into your work, made it your whole life."  
"Aye," he nodded.  
"We're a lot alike," she mused. "We both lost our first, true  
loves. We both let our jobs fill that place in our lives. But it seems like  
I made more mistakes along the way. Alan, for instance. As much as  
I love Sarah and Josh, I should never have married Alan."  
"Things have a way o' happening in life that ye don't expect,  
lass. I ne'er expected to get put to sleep by a magic spell and awaken  
here, a thousand years after my own time. And the funny thing be,  
my brother was right. The time has come when human and gargoyle  
live together in peace, some o' us anyway. We've friends among the  
humans now. Aye, just a few, 'tis true, but that be more than we had  
back home."  
"I can see that you have a lot more stories to tell," she said.  
"Hopefully as many as I have questions."  
"I'd gladly be answering yer questions, lass, but 'tis fair late  
already and my clan will be wondering where I've gotten to. Mayhap  
we could meet again? I'd like to number ye among our friends."  
She looked at her watch. "My God, it's four in the morning!"  
"Aye, and dawn in a few hours."  
"I am never going to get a cab this late, not even with my  
badge. Have to get one of the squad cars to run me home." She  
grinned ruefully. "That'll be fun to explain."  
"If ye'd rather, lass, I can see ye home."  
"You can ..." she looked at his wings as if really seeing them  
for the first time. "You mean, fly?"  
"Glide, 'tis closer to the true, but that be what I mean."  
"Heights make me dizzy," she warned, but it was only token  
objection and they both knew it. The thought of soaring through the  
sky -- what human hasn't dreamed of flying?  
"I'll not let ye fall," he promised. "And if ye dinna like it, then  
next time we'll make sure ye can get a cab."  
"I must be crazy for doing this," she said, slipping her purse  
strap over her head so it hung diagonally across her body. "What  
should I do?"  
"Just trust me, lass. That be all ye need." He extended a  
chivalrous arm and led her up the stairs, cautious of her broken leg  
and the treacherous rubble.  
When she felt the breeze blow through her hair, she had  
second thoughts, but ignored them. They tried to come back when he  
stepped right to the edge. The city lights were gorgeous, but the drop  
was staggering.  
"I don't know about this ..."  
"Ye've nothing to fear. I've been doing it all my life." Before  
she knew what was happening, he scooped her up like a bride going  
over the threshold and leapt off the roof.  
They plunged and she knew she was going to die. Then he  
spread his wings and they were tossed back upward.  
"Eeek!" she cried, instantly mortified at the schoolgirl sound  
coming from the mouth of a mature and respected police captain. But  
it was the only sound that adequately expressed her feeling.  
Thrilled and exhilerated, she threw her arms around his neck  
and held on for the ride of her life.  
* *  
The End  
  


   [1]: http://www.sabledrake.com
   [2]: mailto:christine@sabledrake.com



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